Next to unlimited resources, little makes a baseball executive look smarter than an excellent field manager. Just ask John Schuerholz.
During his 23 seasons running teams, Schuerholz has been blessed to work with two of the best managers in history, the late Dick Howser and Bobby Cox.
“One of the best things that has happened to me has been my relationship with those two,” said Schuerholz, the Atlanta Braves’ general manager. “I was with Dick for too short of a time. Now I’m going into my 15th year with Bobby.”
Howser took the Kansas City Royals to an AL West title in 1984 and a World Series victory in 1985 before dying of a brain tumor in 1987 at 51. Cox, who had been Schuerholz’s first choice to replace Howser, has taken the Braves to 12 straight division titles, all after Schuerholz followed him to Atlanta.
Howser beat Cox head to head when the Royals rallied from a 3-1 deficit to defeat the Toronto Blue Jays in the 1985 ALCS. Cox left for Atlanta the following season to become GM.
While true fame has eluded Cox, who captured a World Series only in 1995, he registered an all-time best +38 on the Tribune’s Impact Factor, which judges the influence of a manager on his teams. Howser is tied for 10th with a career mark of +19, an amazing total considering it was compiled over only six seasons–1980 with the New York Yankees and 1982-86 with the Royals.
That rating means Howser was responsible for an average of 3.2 victories a year. Cox, by comparison, has helped his team an average of 1.7 wins a year.
“What I’d say is similar is that Dick and Bobby both had–well, Dick had and Bobby has–an abiding respect for major-league players and their ability to play this game at the highest level,” Schuerholz said. “That respect is so earnest, so honest, so easy for players to feel, to sense, that [players] really played well for those guys.”
Needless to say, both know how to run a game.
Texas GM John Hart, whose Cleveland team lost to Cox’s Braves in the 1995 World Series, says he ordered his advance scouts to focus on Cox because he’s “the best you’ll ever see, always ahead of the other guys.”
“You can’t manage as successfully as both of those guys without instincts for the game,” Schuerholz said. “You have to have a feel for who’s the kind of player you want on your team to fill a particular role or to be in the game at a certain time. Dick had that, and so does Bobby. He probably doesn’t get enough credit for it. He’s a real strategist. He always thinks two or three moves ahead.”
A feel for people also helps.
“I really believe what has contributed the most to their success is their interaction, their leadership style,” Schuerholz said. “How players accept and respect what those guys say is the way things have to be done has a lot to do with their success. There’s not a lot of histrionics with either of them. . . . Players just feel secure, comfortable with them, and I think that’s how you get guys to play with confidence.”
